Lady Bird Continues Its Standing-Ovation Streak at the New York Film Festival

As the credits rolled on the New York Film Festival’s screening of Lady Bird Sunday night, a woman astutely observed, to no one in particular, “I feel like we’re all in the middle of calling our moms.”

Perhaps the film’s ability to evoke that feeling explains its runaway success on the festival circuit thus far. Lady Bird stars Saoirse Ronan as Christine McPherson—who demands others call her “Lady Bird”—a high-school senior dueling with her tough-loving mother (played with knowing candor by Laurie Metcalf), falling in—and just as quickly, out of—love, learning to distinguish true friendship from faux popularity, and dreaming of East Coast college life. While Lady Bird revels in the hyper-specificities of suburban teenagehood in the early aughts (Dave Matthews Band songs, puka shell necklaces, TV news consumed by the burgeoning war in Iraq), it also waxes universal about young love and sex, class and mother-daughter dynamics, and the ever-shifting meaning of home.

Greta Gerwig, who wrote and directed the film, is telling a semi-autobiographical story, albeit one that also slots nicely with her other on-screen work. “I think I’m interested in the moment when who you think you are begins to erode,” she told Vanity Fair on the red carpet ahead of the screening. “In Frances Ha, one seed of an idea was: when was the last great day you spent with your best friend? You don’t know when it was the last great day—you just know when you’ve never had it again. I think with Mistress America, in a way it was about Tracy, the younger character, through her eyes, seeing Brooke, who has kind of aged out of a scene . . . and with this movie, it’s about the vividness of a world that’s about to end. Your last year of high school is so vivid and so extreme, and you feel the feelings, but at the same time, you know it’s about to completely end.”

The film also marks a significant new chapter for the 34-year-old director. Gerwig, who opted for philosophy at Barnard College over film school, got her start as an actress in early mumblecore films like Hannah Takes the Stairs, and has since become an indie film staple; last year she starred in both the Jackie Kennedy biopic Jackie and the ensemble dramedy 20th Century Women.Lady Bird is Gerwig’s solo directing debut.

According to her actors, though, assuming the role of director came intimidatingly easily to Gerwig. She helped each actor have a sense of ownership over their character, welcoming, for example, Ronan’s opinions on Lady Bird’s attire. For Timothée Chalamet, who plays Lady Bird’s mansplaining crush, Kyle, Gerwig encouraged viewings of Éric Rohmer films to study “young men talking at women about their ideas.” And as a consummate music-lover, she always came to set prepared with a perfectly curated playlist.

“Nothing about Greta seemed inexperienced for a first-time director,” Tracy Letts, the Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright and actor who plays Lady Bird’s tenderhearted father, told V.F. “The work she’s done in front of the camera and as a writer has really prepared her for this moment. She was completely confident. Sometimes the delivery system for that comes out as kind of a self-deprecating shoulder shrug, but she knew exactly what she wanted, and she knew exactly how to get it.” Lois Smith, who plays the mother superior at Lady Bird’s school, concurred, calling Gerwig “absolutely a natural.”

Gerwig also served as a role model for the young actors on her set. Twenty-year-old Kathryn Newton, who played Reese Witherspoon’s similarly rebellious daughter in HBO mega-hit Big Little Lies and who is slated to star as youngest sister Amy in BBC One and Masterpiece’s forthcoming Little Women adaptation, was elated when she snagged a small role as a lovable high-school nerd in Lady Bird. Newton recalled first watching Gerwig shine as a drifting New York twenty-something in Frances Ha, telling V.F. that she “immediately became [Gerwig’s] biggest fan, watched all her films, and said, ‘I want to be like that when I grow up.’”

With Oscar whispers already aswirl, the arrival of Lady Bird marks yet another promising turning point for stories told from a decidedly female perspective. Gerwig pointed out in the post-screening Q&A that it’s no coincidence she felt urgently compelled to start writing Lady Bird after working with Rebecca Miller, who directed her in the 2015 screwball rom-com Maggie’s Plan. When asked by one young woman whether she thinks the situation for women in Hollywood with serious directorial aspirations has improved in recent years, Gerwig took an optimistic stance: “The numbers are getting better. If this is what you want to do, you’ll find your guides. There’ll be other women who pick you up and push you forward and tell you to jump,” she said—to a second rapturous round of applause.

Metropolis

Fritz Lang’s 1927 German expressionist classic has influenced countless films, not least because it’s a timeless paean to the Art Deco movement. Set in 2026, Metropolis imagines a world of bright lights, towering buildings—like Manhattan on steroids—and impossibly chic robots.

Photo: From Everett Collection.

2001: A Space Odyssey

Stanley Kubrick’s legendary 1968 film about humans traversing the universe lived up to the gargantuan promise of the word “odyssey,” starting with the daring opening scene set to “Thus Spoke Zarathustra.” Everything was immaculately designed, from the pristine spaceship with its glowing red emergency hatch, to the impressively rendered space walks.

Photo: From MGM/Stanley Kubrick Productions/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi classic, which is just about to turn 40, gave us some of the most enduring alien-adventure imagery of our time. From the Lite-Brite flying U.F.O. zipping across the starry sky, to the tableau of workers set against the stunning desert landscape, Encounters is one for the ages.

Photo: From Columbia/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock.

E.T.

E.T. himself wasn’t a looker, but the movie sure was. Steven Spielberg grounded the film with looming, exterior shots of Culver City, then flung Elliott’s adventures deep into the sun-dappled heart of the ethereal Redwood National Park.

Photo: From Universal/Everett Collection.

Under the Skin

Few movies are as darkly disarming as Jonathan Glazer’s 2014 thriller, filmed half in Scotland’s bustling city streets, half in its surreal natural landscapes. Scarlett Johansson’s man-eating alien also brings her prey back to a pitch-black cave with a deep pool, like something truly out of a nightmare.

Photo: From Everett Collection.

Ex Machina

Alex Garland’s 2015 stunner takes place largely in one home—but what an unbelievably gorgeous home it is, a high-tech wonderland nestled deep into a verdant forest. The brilliant design extends to everything from the luxe-yet-minimalist decor, to the aesthetic of the main robot (played by Alicia Vikander), her translucent body only partially sheathed in skin.

Photo: From Everett Collection.

Arrival

Before tackling Blade Runner 2049, Denis Villeneuve polished his sci-fi chops with Arrival, the slow-burning vehicle about a linguist trying to communicate with aliens. Though the drama is mostly contained to military quarters and the room with the aliens, Villeneuve shows off a little by featuring a massive, oblong spaceship floating just above the ground of a foggy, grassy field. Bradford Young’s rich cinematography, inspired by the darkly beautiful photography of Martina Hoogland Ivanow, ups the film’s art factor.

Photo: From Paramount/Everett Collection.

Metropolis

Fritz Lang’s 1927 German expressionist classic has influenced countless films, not least because it’s a timeless paean to the Art Deco movement. Set in 2026, Metropolis imagines a world of bright lights, towering buildings—like Manhattan on steroids—and impossibly chic robots.

From Everett Collection.

2001: A Space Odyssey

Stanley Kubrick’s legendary 1968 film about humans traversing the universe lived up to the gargantuan promise of the word “odyssey,” starting with the daring opening scene set to “Thus Spoke Zarathustra.” Everything was immaculately designed, from the pristine spaceship with its glowing red emergency hatch, to the impressively rendered space walks.

From MGM/Stanley Kubrick Productions/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

Steven Spielberg’s sci-fi classic, which is just about to turn 40, gave us some of the most enduring alien-adventure imagery of our time. From the Lite-Brite flying U.F.O. zipping across the starry sky, to the tableau of workers set against the stunning desert landscape, Encounters is one for the ages.

From Columbia/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock.

E.T.

E.T. himself wasn’t a looker, but the movie sure was. Steven Spielberg grounded the film with looming, exterior shots of Culver City, then flung Elliott’s adventures deep into the sun-dappled heart of the ethereal Redwood National Park.

From Universal/Everett Collection.

Star Wars IV

Let us now pay homage to the film that started a billion-dollar franchise and begat a cottage industry of lesser copycats. From the rosy, double-mooned desert landscape of Tatooine, to the eternal image of the Millennium Falcon hurtling through a starry galaxy far, far away, the first S_tar Wars_ set the stage for an incredibly novel universe.

From Lucasfilm/Fox/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock.

Blade Runner

Ridley Scott’s original adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s story of rogue replicants presented a deliciously claustrophobic city cluttered with neon lights, inspired by the urgency of Hong Kong. Much of the film’s gargantuan feel can be attributed to ingenious special effects and models painted to look like a life-sized dystopian hellscape.

From Ladd Company/Warner Bros/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock.

The Matrix

Perhaps the most enduring thing about The Matrix is not its mind-melting plot, but its perfectly curated futuristic-goth aesthetic. The Wachowskis brilliantly baked Neo’s world into dark green settings, a moody backdrop for the leather-clad cyberpunks waging a physical and philosophical war against their enemies.

From Snap Stills/REX/Shutterstock.

Gravity

Alfonso Cuarón scooped up the best-director Oscar for this 2013 film for good reason. The tense, space-bound thriller is largely comprised of special effects, opening with a gorgeously rendered vision of the Earth in all its breathtaking splendor.

From Warner Bros/Everett Collection.

Under the Skin

Few movies are as darkly disarming as Jonathan Glazer’s 2014 thriller, filmed half in Scotland’s bustling city streets, half in its surreal natural landscapes. Scarlett Johansson’s man-eating alien also brings her prey back to a pitch-black cave with a deep pool, like something truly out of a nightmare.

From Everett Collection.

Ex Machina

Alex Garland’s 2015 stunner takes place largely in one home—but what an unbelievably gorgeous home it is, a high-tech wonderland nestled deep into a verdant forest. The brilliant design extends to everything from the luxe-yet-minimalist decor, to the aesthetic of the main robot (played by Alicia Vikander), her translucent body only partially sheathed in skin.

From Everett Collection.

Arrival

Before tackling Blade Runner 2049, Denis Villeneuve polished his sci-fi chops with Arrival, the slow-burning vehicle about a linguist trying to communicate with aliens. Though the drama is mostly contained to military quarters and the room with the aliens, Villeneuve shows off a little by featuring a massive, oblong spaceship floating just above the ground of a foggy, grassy field. Bradford Young’s rich cinematography, inspired by the darkly beautiful photography of Martina Hoogland Ivanow, ups the film’s art factor.